Finance & Capital Management

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Walmart is offering its customers a new way to load money onto prepaid cards.

Bentonville, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores said Tuesday that it is launching a new service called Rapid Reload, which allows customers to load money onto prepaid cards.

The service is affiliated with Green Dot Network, InComm's Vanilla Reload Network and First Data's Money Network.

For a fee of $3.74, the program allows customers, effective immediately, to add money to their card at a store register.

WASHINGTON — The National Retail Federation released its 2012 holiday forecast on Tuesday, which shows sales increasing 4.1% to $586.1 billion, down from last year's 5.6% growth.

However, the NRF's 2012 estimate tops the 10-year holiday sales growth average of 3.5%.

Lynnwood, Wash. -- Reporting ahead of most retailers whose results will be posted on Thursday, action sports retailer Zumiez said that same-store sales for the month of September rose 5.6%.

Total sales for the month increased 18.6% to $62.7 million, compared with $52.9 million for the same period last year.

LAKELAND, Fla.— Publix on Monday announced its board of directors declared a semi-annual dividend on its common stock of 30 cents per share. The dividend will be payable and mailed Dec. 3, 2012, to stockholders of record as of the close of business Oct. 31, 2012.

Bronx, N.Y. -- Simone Development Cos. announced that LA Fitness will open a 43,000-sq.-ft. facility at Metro Center Atrium, a new 370,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use project in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx in New York.

The office, retail and hotel complex is the latest phase in Simone Development’s 42-acre, multi-building Hutchinson Metro Center campus.

LA Fitness’s new gym is slated to open November 2013, and will join a newly announced Residence Inn-branded hotel at Metro Center Atrium.

Plymouth Meeting, Pa. -- Ikea said Monday that it plans to sell only energy-efficient LED lighting by 2016. The move comes two years after the Swedish retailer phased out incandescent bulbs.

Ikea said it believes the shift to the longer-lasting bulbs will help set an environmentally friendly example in the industry. It also will help save the company about $10 million to $20 million a year, or 10%, in lighting costs at its 300 stores around the globe, said Steve Howard, the company's chief sustainability officer.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Former Johnson & Johnson chairman and CEO James Burke passed away Sept. 28. He was 87 years old.